After less than 30 minutes of deliberation, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last night unanimously and decisively agreed to add five Edgartown pathways dating back to colonial times into a special protection zone that will prevent them from being clear cut or widened in the future.

One of the top striped bass caught in the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby this past week had a rough journey off and back onto the derby leader board.

On Sunday evening, Lev Wlodyka, 28, of Chilmark weighed in a 57.56 pound striped bass.

But the fish, it turns out, had ingested 1.68 pounds of lead prior to being caught.

This was a big surprise to Mr. Wlodyka, not to mention to derby officials. They quickly disqualified the fish. The decision upset Mr. Wlodyka, for he had caught the fish using a hooked eel.

New Hampshire advertising agency executive David Flood has produced a documentary on Vineyard life and the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.

The hour-long color film, Feeding the Water, will premiere today at 7 p.m. on MVTV and will run on the station through the remainder of the derby. Mr. Flood filmed for five weeks during the 2006 derby.

You were wandering around looking lost and lonely. When we looked at each other, I immediately could see you wanted me to help rescue you. Your eyes said: “Please take me home with you — I promise to be good.”

For the next five years we were best friends.

On Sept. 11 I lost Happy to a series of illnesses.

Fordie would have grinned and shaken his head over the derby fish flap.

He was a good guy who grew up in a tough place. He worked hard jobs and learned early that life isn’t always fair.

So when the cancer doctors told him to put his affairs in order late in 1994, he knew how to handle adversity.

His full name was Walter Ford. He died in 1995 a month after the derby and this is probably the only time he’ll be memorialized in print.

Mainland police this week said a Fairhaven man who disappeared from a Vineyard-bound voyage of the New England Fast Ferry late last month left a note for his family; as a result police now believe the man did not fall off the boat by accident.

On Sept. 24 Walter P. Tyler, 28, of Fairhaven, reportedly boarded the 1 p.m. high-speed passenger ferry from New Bedford to the Vineyard but never arrived on the Island. A team of investigators last week searched the waters between Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound but found nothing.

The search for a new manager for Dukes County hit a roadblock last week.

On Sept. 27, the screening committee appointed to review applications and recommend three finalists to the county commissioners recommended the commissioners re-advertise the position and said it would not continue the screening process with the applications received to date.

The recommendation was made in executive session at the regular meeting of the committee.

Sengekontacket Pond will reopen Monday to shellfishing, but the source of the bacterial contamination which led to its closure for most of the summer remains a mystery.

Edgartown shellfish constable Paul Bagnall announced on Monday that new tests of the pond’s water, done last week, showed coliform bacteria counts down to within safe levels, allowing most of it to be reopened.

Concluding four years of negotiations, the Chilmark selectmen this week announced a three-way land swap which will open up a new conservation corridor between North and South Roads and create four affordable homesites in town.

The land swap involves the town, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank and the Hillman family, longtime summer residents who own property in Chilmark. No money will change hands in the deal. Final approval will be needed from Chilmark voters, the town planning board and also the state legislature.

The Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby is a folksy event that has also become a mature, sophisticated enterprise generating more than $2 million, perhaps as much as $3 million annually in shoulder season revenue for Island businesses.

“That’s why the derby was started. There was no shoulder season when the derby began as a chamber of commerce event,” derby president Ed Jerome said this week at the Wednesday morning weigh-in.